Review: The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin

Published: January 9, 2018

Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Format: audiobook via Overdrive

Rating: 5/5

Synopsis

If you were told the date of your death, how would it shape your present?

It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children—four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness—sneak out to hear their fortunes.

Their prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in '80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11, hoping to control fate; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.

My Thoughts

That one question in the synopsis: If you were told the date of your death, how would it shape your present, is what pulled me to this novel. In The Immortalists, we met the Gold siblings and through sections in the novel we see how each one’s lives play out over the years. I liked this style because we get their full life story in one sitting and see what becomes of each one. Each sibling always has the one day etched into their brains, that date that the psychic told them that they would meet their fate. So my question is did they truly live life to the fullest knowing what day they would die or did knowing the date cause them more harm than good?

Each of them knew when she claimed they would die but they never told one another. Did this cause them to live a more carefree life doing what they truly wanted or did this wreck their lives to the core? I connected with some of the siblings' stories more than the others and the ones that I did have truly stayed with me till this day, I won't say which ones so I won't spoil anything, but there are parts of this book that wrecked me.

As you can tell I truly loved and enjoyed this book, but what I loved most was that it makes you think and question life, it is beautifully written with a powerful message and I hope everyone gets the chance to explore this magical read.